One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow: A Novel

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The story takes place in 1870 on a desolate Wyoming prairie, a good 20 miles from the nearest town. When Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora, having sex with their only neighbor, Substance Webber, Ernest shoots and kills Substance. Ernest turns himself in and is sentenced to two years in prison. With winter approaching, Cora asks Substance’s widow, Nettie Mae, if the two families could share resources. Nettie Mae refuses at first, but when her only child, Clyde, is weakened by fever, she agrees to let Cora and her four (4) children move into her home. It is a long, hard winter for these two women to live under the same roof.

This is a book that grabbed me from the the very first paragraph. It starts with a murder when one man goes down to the river and finds his wife with his neighbor. This leaves the two families living out on the Wyoming frontier without their men as winter is coming. The families are forced to come together to survive despite the dislike between them. Their farms are far from any other neighbors and without each other neither will make it. There are some wonderful descriptive passages and an interesting premise to this story, just enough interest to keep me going as far as I did until I began skimming. Two mothers, one widowed, one with her husband in jail, face a bleak winter on neighbouring farms in northern Wyoming in 1876. They are enemies. This is a dream Beulah is having about a worm eating the leaf of a beanstalk...."The worm moved its terrible jaws and spoke. God is said to be great, the worm told me, So great you cannot see Him. But God is small, with hands like threads, and they reach for you everywhere you go. The hands touch everything-even you, even me. What falls never falls; what grows has grown a thousand times, and will live a thousand times more. Wherever hand touches hand, the Oneness comes to stay. Once God has made a thing whole, it cannot be broken again." I listened to the book. The narrator was great and helped to get the listener immersed into the story.Losing her husband to Cora’s indiscretion is another hardship for stoic Nettie Mae. But as a brutal Wyoming winter bears down, Cora and Nettie Mae have no choice but to come together as one family - to share the duties of working the land and raising their children. There’s Nettie Mae’s son, Clyde - no longer a boy, but not yet a man - who must navigate the road to adulthood without a father to guide him, and Cora’s daughter, Beulah, who is as wild and untamable as her prairie home. When a deep friendship develops between teenagers Clyde Weber and Beulah Bemis, the tension deepens between the families. Two of their children are teenagers, though, and they fall in love. This relationship tests the women further. Wyoming, 1876. The Bemis (Ernest/Cora and daughter Beulah) and Webber (Substance/Nettie Mae and son Clyde) have relied on each other for survival. But when Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora with Substance, Ernest kills him. While Ernest is in prison, the women left behind, despite their feelings of anger and shame, they must live together in one roof to survive the harsh winter. Their children Clyde and Beulah inevitably start to develop feelings for each other.

I’ve always heard the saying that no home is big enough for 2 women and it was a long, bitter winter as Nettie Mae and Cora try to work together to survive. I wanted to hate both women, but they each had a great deal of heartache and struggle. Nettie Mae had lost 4 of her 5 children and only had Clyde. Cora had been raised in Saint Louis and was a granddaughter of Ulysses S. Grant and had never expected to live in the prairie wilderness. Winter is coming and it’s apparent that the Bemis family isn’t ready. Late crops are yet to be harvested, but the main worry is an adequate wood supply; without it the family will freeze in the harsh Wyoming winter. The power of this book comes from the way the author brings her characters to life. Our main protagonist is Beulah Bemis age 13. She is the eldest of the Bemis children. Smart, capable, but dreamy and a little magical. Beulah sees and notices what others don't. Beulah is the lynchpin of the story. The author certainly convinces the reader of her expertise regarding the landscape and the era. You could easily imagine the farms, nearby mountains, the river, the sod houses, etc..

Wyoming Territory, 1876, can be a dreary place when you have but one neighbor and no other settlers for miles. Ernest Bemis acts on impulse when he finds his wife, Cora, in a compromising situation with neighbor Substance Webber, resulting in one man dead, the other in jail. With her husband in jail, Cora Bemis and her four children are left without a husband and father, and widowed Nettie Mae Webber and Clyde, her only child, are left to manage by themselves. Hawker fleshed out the four main characters in unique fashion! Each section is broken into four chapters, beginning with 13-year-old Beulah's thoughts (told in 1st person). She is "eerie and wise", with the ability "to see and know". Her attunement with others and especially with nature gave me goosebumps! If anything, her character makes me appreciate the intricacies of life outdoors even more. The following three chapters, each told in 3rd person, incorporate Beulah's musings. We have: Cora (Beulah's mother) whose adulterous relationship sets the stage for this story; Nettie Mae (the neighbor woman) whose husband was killed by Cora's husband when he discovers their dalliance; and Clyde (Nettie Mae's 16-year-old son) who now is the "man of the family". Although I felt for each of these characters on various levels, it was Nettie Mae's perspective that I appreciated the most! I’m sure there are other readers with more patience who will enjoy this. For me, the length, repetitiveness and ‘magic’ affected my rating. I thank NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted. As the story winds down, we are informed that the wronged widow, Nettie Mae, feels sisterly toward her adulterous neighbor, Cora. It would have been so much more satisfying if we could have come to that conclusion ourselves – without being TOLD. An eventual meeting of the minds or hearts – or a shared laugh between the two women is never disclosed. Forgiveness isn’t examined, either. the hardships and tragic events are all believably lifelike! I could easily relate to the seasonal changes and the farm work done throughout the year. I even made a personal connection to the two-headed lamb! Several years ago, one of our cows birthed a stillborn two-headed calf (with vet assistance). Extremely rare! and,

Wyoming prairie in 1876, two isolated farming families live next door to each other and one night all hell breaks loose. When Ernest Bemis discovers his wife Cora and his neighbor Substance Webber cheating! The meek mild Ernest shoots Substance and kills him. He rides to the closest town, he informs the local sheriff about his crime and is jailed for two years. The other teenager in the story, Clyde, the dead man's son, doesn’t think about the incident much either. His father is blown away by a neighbor and yet his thoughts about the incident are never examined. He doesn't say or think anything like, “I never would have thought Dad could do something like this.” Or “Wow. What a way to go.” Clyde must bury his murdered father. Wouldn’t that incident be rough to process mentally? The moment is well-told and memorable, yet Clyde never thinks of it again. I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Review

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Nettie Mae Webber's now a widow with a farm to run, animals to look after and her only help is her sixteen year old Clyde. Cora Bemis has to live with her guilt, shame and life on the prairie is very hard. Her four children Beulah, Benjamin, Charles and Miranda need her and they no longer have their father to do the heavy work. Soon it becomes very clear that Cora's going to struggle to survive the harsh winter on her own, she's not prepared at all, she has no money to buy supplies, she doesn't have enough fire wood and the only person she can ask for help is her neighbor Nettie Mae!